Electromagnetic interference (EMI) or radio-frequency interference (RFI) are issues for internal cables of computing systems, such as desktops, All-in-Ones (AIOs), notebooks, tablets and smart phones. Because of this, shielded cables are recommended for use as internal cables for these computing systems. There are a number of shielded cables that are commonly used, including, for example, shielded u-coax cables, shielded flexible printed circuit (FPC) cables and shielded flexible flat cable (FFC) cables.
One solution to reduce EMI and RFI for the internal cables has been developed at Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif. They developed a grounding mechanism that achieves low EMI/RFI by using a conductive material to attach a cable shield to a ground pad on printed circuit board (PCB) when the cable is connected to a connector attached to the PCB. In such cases grounding the shield properly can provide ˜20 dB noise reduction at ˜2.4 GHz in comparison to the case of floating shield.
One problem associated with the use of conductive tape in this EMI/RFI grounding mechanism is that once the cable is installed, it becomes very difficult to remove the cable. Therefore, rework is very challenging, and damage to the connector often occurs when peeling off the tape. As a result, although the RFI mitigation characteristics are good, the use of this approach is not expected to be prevalent.